Teledyne, MECO and DARPA Proceed to Phase II of MANTRA Program
MECO has been awarded a Phase II contract by Teledyne Scientific & Imaging for work on the MANTRA program under contract to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). MANTRA stands for Materials with Novel Transport Properties. The programs objective is to develop revolutionary technologies to support higher flow rates of desalination with greatly reduced energy and maintenance requirements. The team was selected after a successful Phase I effort demonstrating improvements in membrane flux and fouling characteristics over existing technology. Phase II will further the development and culminate in a working prototype model of a man-portable backpack system.
The US Army’s Lightweight Water Purifier (LWP), previously designed and developed by MECO, represents current state of the art technology for small mobile water purification and desalination needs. The LWP produces 125 gallons per hour of freshwater from a brackish water source or 75 gallons per hour from a seawater source. The LWP removes nuclear, biological or chemical agents from the water supply, is set up in 45 minutes and operated by one soldier. The LWP fits in the back of a HMVEE, a Blackhawk helicopter and is air droppable. The teams’ work is focused on maintaining the capacity and capability of the LWP while reducing its weight by a factor of 90, its cube and energy consumption by a factor of 20.
DARPA’s mission is to maintain the technological superiority of the U.S. Military and prevent technological surprise from harming our national security. The team is led by Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, CA.
Teledyne Scientific & Imaging is a division of Teledyne Technologies a leading provider of sophisticated electronic components and subsystems, instrumentation and communications products, including defense electronics, monitoring and control instrumentation as well as engineered systems and information technology services for defense, space and environmental applications, and supply energy generation, energy storage and small propulsion products.
MECO is a manufacturer of engineered products for water purification serving a multiple of industries. The company has a?history of providing products and services to the U.S. Armed Forces dating as far back as World War II. The company’s military products include mobile water purification plants, pumps and marine heat exchangers. MECO is also the world’s leading producer of water purification plants for offshore oil and gas platforms and the biopharmaceutical industry where ultra pure water is the primary ingredient in the drug manufacturing process.